Cat And Mouse
by 11Dancer14
Summary: Carolyn always thought she'd have the next day, she never thought that her mouse would get away.  inspired by reading a few of ObsessedwithStabler's stories


A/N: I was reading one of ObessedwithStabler's stories about Carolyn and Mike and how they had danced around each other for years and then finally came together, then I read another one of her stories about poor Alex at Olivia and Elliot's wedding and I started thinking, what if Mike didn't wait around, what if he met someone new?

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them! :( :(

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Carolyn always thought she'd have tomorrow, or the next day. That the game of cat and mouse they played would continue on. That her game of hard to get would keep him pursuing her forever. She doesn't quite remember when it stopped, when he no longer looked at her with loving and concerned eyes, concerned yes, but no love remained. Maybe that's why she missed it, those two were so often together in the beginning, blended into a raw, tender emotion that so few actually saw.

She remembers giving him just enough to keep him going, a little touch on his hand after a hard case, a chaste kiss on the cheek after he'd gotten coffee, or when they went out with the others, she would sit next to him, close enough to be friendly but nothing more.

It wasn't that she didn't care, it was that she needed to know that he'd hold on, that he'd love her enough to be there, to be content with being friends if that's all she'd let them be.

And maybe, that's where it all went wrong, she can remember the day she woke up knowing in her bones that the game was done, that today would be the day she told him, that she let the game end. She walked into work with a happiness that couldn't be squished. She remembers the exact words they spoke, the way she walked to his desk in the back, behind the column.

He looks up at her when she says his name, and even then, she feels a sense of foreboding when he tells her that he has plans for today and when she suggests a drink after work at their favorite bar he gets a strange look on his face, as if he doesn't quite know how to say something that he knew he had to say. He then flicks through a planner on his desk, and Carolyn can't remember when he even got a planner, or when he starting organizing the once messy pile he had called a desk.

He calls her name out, and she's jolted back to reality. He tells her that he can do lunch tomorrow, and when's she's walking numbly away, she's shocked by the realization that her Mike hadn't asked about tomorrow, hadn't shown any of the worry that she'd turn him down.

All through the morning he's looking at the clock, she knows paperwork isn't his favorite thing but he was never this jumpy, he was always content cause it meant spending time with her. The second the clock hits twelve he's up, grabbing something from his desk and stuffing it into his pants pocket. Goren and Eames are gone, they stopped their game of Cat And Mouse a long time ago, when a stuttering, nervous Bobby told Alex he loved her.

She knows she shouldn't be getting up out of her seat, much less making her way over to that desk behind a column, the desk that is so clean that it's unnatural for him, and she shouldn't be bending over his planner, looking down at it, flipping through it until she finds today, and just as she knew, under twelve was the messy writing of Mike.

She doesn't know quite what she's doing, what this would accomplish, but either way she heads out onto the street, wondering why he would ever go all the way to the cafe across from the DA's office when there's a perfectly good one right across from the precinct. Everything slows down from the second she pushes open the door, she remembers sitting down, smiling at the blonde women at the window. Her heart drops through her stomach and potentially to the floor in the next moments. She watches as a tall, brown haired man comes from the bathroom, going towards the blonde.

Mike smiles as he settles back down, wrapping his arm around the women. She leans her head upward and kisses him briefly, setting her hand over his in a comforting manner. Carolyn can't see clearly anymore, but she keeps whispering to herself, over and over again _he doesn't love her, he doesn't love her, he didn't say he loves her_

Her vision starts to fail her as she watches her Mike, her Mike, reach into his pocket, and pull out a little black box and grab the woman's hand, she leans in to hear the words, desperate to hear him say something to keep her hopes up, to keep her alive.

"Alex," He begins, and already her heart is cracking, like an old stone that's beginning to show age, "You helped me through my heartbreak, you helped me see that I didn't need to hold on to something that was dead from the moment it hit my hands, I want to have you in my life forever, I want to have kids with you, I want to have you being grumpy because you haven't had enough coffee in the mornings, so, would you do the honors of marrying me?"

"Yes, oh yes Mike this is the best thing that could've ever happened," Her hands held his in a tender, sweet embrace and Carolyn can't help but feel that those should've been her hands, that she should've been the one crying for joy.

Now her lungs are failing her, they're constricting and she feels as if all the oxygen in the world has disappeared and that the sun has burned out and the only light left is shining on Mike and his beautiful fiancee. She struggles to her feet, bracing herself against the wall as she feels her knees give out, she's limping to the door, she's not sure she'll even make it because really, she should've known better than to allow herself to imagine that their game of Cat And Mouse would go on forever.

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A/N: Yes, I used Alex, after that tearjerker with her at Liv and Elliot's wedding I thought she desearved a happy ending, I'm considering writing a prequel and and sequel to this, think I should?


End file.
